1. The very first Birmingham Library was founded sometime between 1635 and 1642 by puritan minister Francis Roberts.

2. It was one of the first public libraries in England.

3. The building was put up in 1655-1656 and it contained only books that the puritans would allow in it. Books deemed to be unfit for a public library were given to clergymen and schoolmasters in Moseley, King’s Norton and Wythall.

4. The library was disbanded when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies returned to power in the Restoration of 1660.

5. Birmingham's first central library came just over 200 years later when the Birmingham Reference Library opened on October 26, 1866.

6. A fire in 1879 destroyed all but 1,000 books of the 50,000 in the building. It was rebuilt and reopened in June 1882.

7. As the collection of books grew, it was decided in 1938 that a new library was needed. But then World War II broke out so plans were out on hold. Eventually, the new Central Library opened in Chamberlain Square on January 12, 1974.

8. The Central Library was the largest public library in Europe. And in 2010–11 it was the second most visited library in the country (after Norwich) with 1,197,350 people passing through its doors, and was also Birmingham’s busiest building.

9. But the Prince of Wales didn’t like it. In the October 1988 BBC documentary A Vision of Britain, the Prince said the library, designed by John Madin in Brutalist style, looked like "a place where books are incinerated, not kept."

10. Central Library closed on June 29, 2013, as its collection was moved to the new Library of Birmingham in Centenary Square.

11. Built for £189million, the Library of Birmingham is the largest public library in the UK, the largest public cultural space in Europe and the largest regional library in Europe.

12. Initial plans for the new library had it split across two sites - with the main lending library to be in Centenary Square and the archives and special collections at Millennium Point. But that idea was scrapped.

13. Dutch architects firm Mecanoo and BupoHappold Engineering won a competition to create the new library, and in 2014, the Library of Birmingham was named West Midlands building of the year by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Patrick Arends from Mecanoo was named emerging architect of the year while the library’s owner Birmingham City Council was crowned client of the year.

14. In addition, Birmingham City Council’s assistant director of culture, Brian Gambles, who worked on the library project, was made an MBE for services to libraries, saying that "over 5,000 people have worked one way or another on creating the library and it just gives you a tremendous warm glow when you experience the reaction of visitors."

15. The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien, who spent his childhood in Birmingham, was the first book to be put on the shelves of the Library of Birmingham

16. The building has nine floors - six of them open to the public - and can hold 3,000 people.

17. Since its opening, there have been more than 400 events and 32 exhibitions in the building.

18. The library’s most valuable books are editions of Shakespeare’s First Folio and John James Audubon’s Birds of America, worth between £6million and £7million each.

19. There are about a million books in the library - and 316,000 books, DVDs and CDs have been borrowed in its first year. That’s almost twice as many as in the last full year (2011-2012) of the old Central Library.

20. More than 2.7 million people have visited the Library of Birmingham since it opened, compared with the 1.2 million in the last year of the Central Library.

21. There are more than 200 computers for public use in the building. Visitors use the computers 21,000 times a month, and nearly 5,000 people use the free wi-fi each month.